^ It's that simple if you wanna take a third grade approach to it....and you just proved the point about opinion by listing a few other peoples opinions that happen to coincide with your own. So yeah. That about does it "ladies and gentlemen" .

^ It's that simple if you wanna take a third grade approach to it....and you just proved the point about opinion by listing a few other peoples opinions that happen to coincide with your own. So yeah. That about does it "ladies and gentlemen" .

A third grade approach? It takes less than a third grade intelligence to understand CICO. It's just addition and subtraction. That's not opinion. The fundamental issue is people hate the term "calories" and refuse to accept it for many reasons, most of them being issues with owning the reality that they're responsible for their own health problems. It's not easy to accept that for some. But that doesn't matter. You can hate the term "air," but it's still what you breathe. Call it whatever you want.

Don't put your trust in anyone on this forum, including me. You are the key to your own success.

CICO. Okay, if we’re going to believe it, then let’s believe what goes with it.

CICO assumption: If you eat 3500 calories more than you use over time, you’ll gain one pound. And conversely, if you eat 3500 calories less than you use over time, you’ll lose one pound.

Based on some of the calorie calculators around the web, it takes approximately 1890 calories per day for a 200 pound sedentary woman age 55 to maintain her weight. That would be 58,590 calories in a 31 day month.

Also at this weight, walking approx 3.5mph (that’s slow; about a 17 minute mile), this woman burns about 288 calories in 40 minutes. Again, using various calculators on the web.

Let’s now say that this woman eats 1200 calories per day, five days per week. On the weekends, she lets herself splurge and eats 1500 cal on Sat and Sunday.

5 x 1200 = 6000
2 x 1500 = 3000

6000 + 3000 = 9000 for the week or an average of 1286 calories per day.

1286 x 31 = 39,857 = her calories eaten for the month.

Let’s also assume that she takes that 40-minute walk 22 days out of the month.

She’s only changed those two things in her life. She hasn’t found Primal, she’s not counting proteins/carbs/fats. She’s a CICO believer to a fault.

Let’s do the math:

58,590 calories to maintain her weight-39,857 calories she ate “dieting”
18,733 her calorie deficit just on the food+6,336 the calories she burned walking this month
25,069 = calorie deficit + calories burned

25,069 divided by 3500 cal per pound = 7.16 pounds. That's the amount she should have lost in one month mathematically.

But I am here to tell you that doing exactly that, I lost 21 pounds the first month, and between 12 and 14 pounds the subsequent three months. I did find Primal around month three, but that just meant no more pasta, bread, beans, and I started (slowly) tossing things like reduced calorie mayo, butter substitutes, etc. in the garbage. The numerical equation stayed the same - actually the deficits got smaller as I got smaller, so I should have been losing even less weight. I even had a binge day on my birthday that included all manner of raw and fried seafood, and tons of beer and tequila. It wasn’t until I got below 140 that weight loss slowed.

So, given all of that, while I’m still a ‘counter,’ I’ve known for a long time that it can’t just be CICO. Something else is at work. I have some theories, but since I doubt anyone will fund me, they are just theories.

Mark posted a research article link not long ago that showed a faster weight loss on a high fat diet rather than a high carb diet. The human body and its metabolic processes are very complex. Calories in calories out has pretty much been debunked by a number of researchers. In my own experience also it had been debunked. My calorie counter program says I can only eat about 900 calories per day to lose the amount I am losing. I eat much more than that. More like double. And I do minimal exercise.

I disagree with Choco on his argument that it is the "blandness" of Ketogenic diets that make people lose weight. People lose weight faster because their appetite is more controlled not because there are not a lot of ample choices to pick from. Occassionally one has the luxury of going to different poshy restaurantsand most of the items on the menu are highly creative, interesting, fancy but low carb by default.

Most often, I go to eastern european meat markets and I can buy up the whole smoke meats section because they all look and taste so good. Or are we talking about the chinese markets with their different flavours and kinds of fish and seafood, or is it the EXTREMELY diverse range of vegetables that one can buy at these places? Then there are fruits that one can still have (in moderate quantities of course).

The good thing with being in Ketosis is that I am in control of when and how I eat as hunger and/or craving a particular thing is not a death sentence anymore BUT if I was someone who enjoyed cooking a lot (I don't) or someone who had the time to follow recipes (I don't), there is no way I would EVER get bored eating a ketogenic diet for life. The blandness argument is reaching at best and vastly incorrect at worst.

Yeah, it's not bland food at all. Crackers and toast and rice are by definition bland. What do they tell you to eat when sick? Rice, bananas and what's the others? The BRAT diet or something like that?

I'm reading a book by the guy who went on an all meat diet in the 1920s in a metabolic ward study after having described living 5 years with eskimos and eating their food. Nobody believed he could eat that way and not get scurvy.

Way back at the turn of the 20th century they already knew (and were quickly starting to forget) that there were three types of foods: Hunter/herder food (meat and fat and milk), monkey food (tubers, roots, fruits and shoots) and agricultural foods (cereal grains.) They knew you could be healthy on monkey food or hunter/herder food but you couldn't be healthy on cereal grains. We retain some ability to eat foods that other apes do, but apes do not eat grains. Furthermore, only people eating hunter/herder food had 100% absence of dental caries. People eating a mixed diet had some dental caries. People eating only meat and fat had no scurvy or other deficiency diseases. And these wild animals they ate had plenty of fat. The fat animals are older and slower and easier to catch. They go for the fattiest parts and give the rest to their sled dogs.

The point of my saying this is that it is more healthy to eat lower carbohydrate not because it's low in carbohydrate exactly but because it's closer to the true human diet. You can also eat more monkey food and be nearly equally healthy. You can even be a lacto-ovo vegetarian and be nearly equally healthy. What you can't do is be healthy while eating cereal grains or being a vegan.

This guy on the all meat diet (and the other guy who did it with him) ate over 6 pounds of meat and fat each day, living in New York City. Holy crap!

I beg to differ on the blandness of ketogenic diets. What I get is increased satiety from a calorie restricted diet, and don't stimulate the insulin rush that carbs trigger, leading me to consume more calories to acheive satiety.

Yes, no argument at all that less calories are necessary to lose weight. However, ketosis keeps me satisfied with less calories, and more energy, better sleep, better immune response, better mood control.

Will an apple be the end to ketosis? No, depending on how strict you are with carbs. For me, a whole apple would, in fact, blow my carbs for the day (I stay below 30). Plus, it would leaving me scavenging the kitchen for any snacks that I could munch on. However, 1/4 to 1/2 that apple, sliced up and eaten with cheese, or at the end of a meal? Just satisfying enough.

A third grade approach? It takes less than a third grade intelligence to understand CICO. It's just addition and subtraction. That's not opinion. The fundamental issue is people hate the term "calories" and refuse to accept it for many reasons, most of them being issues with owning the reality that they're responsible for their own health problems. It's not easy to accept that for some. But that doesn't matter. You can hate the term "air," but it's still what you breathe. Call it whatever you want.

Oh, don't mistake me as to trying to open a carb or CICO debate. I simply made the observation that your analysis of "why" keto works was merely ONE of several opinions on the subject. And yes, you do tend to state your opinions as fact. See the difference is I don't have to pretend to have all the answers. I know that there are actually far more questions to be answered. It's OK....seeing your reading list I understand. Particularly Lyle and colpo...they both say "think for yourself", but belittle anyone whose analysis leads to different conclusions. So the "think for yourself" schtick should come with the disclaimer "unless you disagree with me!"

Another interesting thing in this book I'm reading is that most Europeans have only been agriculturalists for a few hundred years, not for 10,000 years.

None of this is really about calories. It's about eating a true human diet. You will restore your body to health eating the food your body is meant to eat.

Lewis has posted one of his entire books on the forum here somewhere. I started looking through it, but now that you mention it I'm gonna have to start reading it again. Ah here we go if anyone is interested http://owndoc.com/pdf/The-fat-of-the-land.pdf. AAHhahAH I just looked back and see you already linked it....Oh, well. Its worth linking twice